Monkey Block Quilt Tutorial

These monkeys!

I suppose the toucans are pretty cute too, but did you see the monkeys?!?!

Most of the vines and background are varying shades of teal and blue, but the monkeys are navy, and their bananas are yellow.

Materials:

½ yards monkeys (block centers)

¾ yards navy dots (blocks)

½ yards yellow circles (blocks and binding)

1 1/8 yards assorted fabrics (25-patch blocks)

Cutting:

Monkeys: 10 6½ inch squares

Navy dots: 10 2½ in strips, sub cut into (20) 10½ inch pieces, and (20) 6½ inch pieces

Yellow circles: 6 strips 2½ inches by Width of Fabric (WOF) (1 for blocks, 5 for binding)

Assorted Fabrics: It depends. You could cut 250 2½ inch squares. Or 16 strips 2½ inches by WOF. Or a combination. It depends on how scrappy your assorted fabrics are. I did a little of each because I wanted to use up some scraps that I had, but didn’t want to work with 250 individual pieces.

Assembly:

Block 1 (Square in a square) Make 10

• Sew a 6½ inch navy strip to one side of the 6½ monkey square. Press towards the navy dots.
• Repeat sewing and pressing on the other side of the monkey square with a second 6½ inch navy strip.
• Sew a 10½ inch navy strip to the top of the block. Press towards the navy dots.
• Repeat sewing and pressing with a second 10½ inch navy strip on the bottom of the block.

Block 2 (25-patch) Make 10

• Set aside 10 2½ inch squares.
• Sew the remaining strips into pairs and iron towards the darker fabric. What if I want to sew a long strip to a shorter strip? Do it!

• Sub cut the pairs into units that are 4½ by 2½. For pairs of unequal length, sub cut as many units as possible, then cut apart the seam and return the remaining piece to the to be sewn pile.
• Make 120 units.
• Take 2 units, varying fabrics, nestle seams together, pin, sew and press.

• Make 40. This is called a 4 Patch.
• Place 4 4-patches, 4 pairs and one single 2½ inch square into a 5 by 5 layout.

• Sew the single to the pair on the right. Ignoring the 4- patch in the upper left, sew each of the 3 remaining pairs to a 4-Patch, and then sew the unit with 3 squares to the 6-patch above. Always nestle seams, pin and after sewing, press.

• You’ve now got a 4-patch, a 9-patch, and 2 6-patch. (A 6-patch isn’t really a thing. But it explains what you see in this photo.)
• Sew the two units on the left to each other, the two units on the right to each other, and then the two resulting pieces to each other.
• Voila! A 25-patch. And a finished block.

Putting it all together:

Sew 6 of the 25-patches to the left of a monkey block

and 4 of the 25-patches to the right of a monkey block.

Sew one pair to another, making a row that is 4 blocks wide and alternates 25-patch blocks with monkey blocks. Press towards the navy of the monkey block.

Lay out rows to make sure blocks are continuing to alternate, and sew the rows together.

Baste top, batting and backing.

Quilt as desired. I quilted a ¼ inch on either side of the block seams. (I’m going to learn free motion quilting so I can stiple! I am!)

See my Binding Tutorial for directions and tips on how to turn the 5 yellow strips in to binding and attach to the quilt.

Monkeys! And toucans. But mostly, monkeys!